


the way it gets better

by edgehog



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-05-16 21:13:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14818979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgehog/pseuds/edgehog
Summary: talk less.





	1. Chapter 1

He couldn't live through this.

He thought that as they showed him the knife and his mind went blank and he thought it as they opened his mouth and held it open as he thrashed and choked, and then his mind went blank

except for pain

 _I can’t be like this_ he thought as he woke again shaking and vomiting and sobbing at the pain and the noise he made, the fear he felt, the horror at his own self.

He couldn't live any more, he thought, as he tried to drink and vomited up more blood and thought again he _couldn't_ live any more, he would simply _give up_. This was the worst -- the most -- it was past endurance.

He could not bear it and he would not. He would break in pieces.

Alex shut his eyes, waiting for it.

Just before sleep in a half-doze, he thought: _But what if I don't._

 

He did not die.

It kept startling him -- the way his strength held on for no reason, the frustrating tenacity of his life. Soldiers came and said things to him he didn't hear and made him move and tied him to a horse and he felt so wretchedly awful that he thought again "this is it" and then the contents of his stomach came up in thick black strings, and instead of beating him or smashing in his head with the end of a musket they waited, and someone spoke kindly to him, and that was worse: again he wished for death, and did not die.

He blacked out and woke again and blacked out and woke and kept his eyes shut, feeling the motion of the horse below him, trying not to be sick and trying not to be sick and trying not to be sick --

 

\-- and dreamt he was on the ship again, whitefaced and young, hidden in the hold while a storm shook the masts and the crew thumped about overhead, and water dripped through the boards and ran down his face, mixing with sweat.

He had wept in fear of the future and grief for his past, telling himself no one could see the difference between tears and sweat and seawater. Only salt. Only water. 

"It's alright, lad," said another passenger. "Just a storm."

So they knew he’d been crying, after all.

He had shrugged off the comfort, the hand. Even at nineteen he knew well enough it was _only_ a storm. Another storm. Another hurricane, he thought. More destruction. It dogged his heels, surging up every time he seemed to find a patch of solid ground. And was it to follow him all the days of his life?

 

Camp.

They helped him down and he shut his eyes against the light, world swirling again. Seasickness. This time he won against the rising nausea.

Someone gripped his arm and steadied him, saying "keep walking" and "we're going left now", simple instructions with no apparent pity, that let him simply obey.

And together they went into the General's tent.

 

Washington had been told: of course he had been told.

In the dimmed light of the tent, his face registered nothing but disappointment. It was in the stiff set of his mouth, the way he looked up and down, taking in the view of Alex's muddy, bloody uniform, considering what to say. He’d lost a tool -- his best and favorite weapon, curved to fit the palm.

Still: he was a kind man. “You aren't to blame for this, Hamilton."

Had there been someone saying otherwise? Did someone _say_ it was his own fault? _That mouthy Alex got what he deserved, he was just asking for trouble._

Silent Alex lifted his chin, well aware that his apparent stoicism could be taken for anything. Let Washington think he blamed himself. Let him think -- anything --

Washington rubbed alongside his chin, considering. "We'll have to find something for you to do."

As though Alex had lost the ability to write and think along with his tongue.

He told himself it didn't matter. With what he'd lost already, what was one more thing? Who cared if the General tossed him out -- made him a foot soldier again -- what difference did this make, or anything? It isn't like he can protest --

"Put him in with Burr," says Washington at last.

The soldier standing by the tent flap nods and takes Alex by the arm and leads him into the sunlight that breaks over him like a flash of lightning and that does make Alex react, he finally hears the words and understands them and he lurches and vomits onto the grass, retching up what little he's choked down these last few hours and then dry-heaving until his body is cold and his mind is silent.

He wants to go back and argue with Washington, wants some better option, wants anything anyone else. But by then of course, it is too late.


	2. Chapter 2

Aaron Burr. Aaron _fucking_ Burr.

The prodigy of King's College, the wealthy son of privilege who'd joined the army when he had other options. He'd left his family and walked north to Quebec in snow up to his waist and hadn't said a word of complaint, the story went. He and Alex were the same age but Burr had the height and weight of a child of fourteen; the men called him "Little Burr" and he took it with a customary aplomb that didn't make Alex like him any better.

If Burr’d gotten into fistfights over it, maybe — but he only shrugged it off. 

Unflappable Aaron Burr.

Washington had placed a man who couldn't speak with one who chose not to do it.

So he does blame Alex, after all.

 

 

It doesn’t seem to matter as much as it could. Alex sleeps almost constantly, more than he ought to do and more than he wants to do, and on the fourth — fifth? seventh? — day he wakes in Burr’s tent, it occurs to him to wonder why. This lethargy cannot be only from healing. His mind feels stupid and sticky and —

Drugged.

They’re drugging him.

Why? On whose orders?

And does Burr know?

 

 

Burr knows.

Alex refuses the next food that comes (broth, and well-soaked hardtack, and some lumps that might be potato), and Burr seems about to speak but (of course) does not. He only watches.

Alex spends the hours laying on one side or the other, restlessly shifting in the heat, wishing he had enough strength to read. Now and then he dozes and wakes.

When he wakes, he is hungry.

It surprises him — this proof that his body wants to live.

He didn’t know, before, what it was like to have a body and a mind at variance. It feels like another hurricane. Another war.

His stomach growls, speaking for him.

Burr says: “There’s fresh stew when you want it.”

Alex shakes his head.

Burr doesn’t move out of his chair or even shift position but all his focus turns on Alex, and it’s like hearing the tell-tale warning rattle of a snake.

He waits — for an explaination, maybe — and says: “Why is that?”

Alex rolls his eyes. Burr isn’t stupid, he knows _why_.

“Do I need to bring someone in here to pour it down your throat?”

Alex would like to see them try. Even sick as he is, even halfway to dead — they don’t call him _alleycat_ for nothing —

Burr says, soft: “They would, you know. Washington wants you alive. Keeping you for a trophy, I suppose. A warning to our troops.”

The poison in his tone is not directed towards Alex.

“So tell me. Would you rather them pry open your jaws and hold you down, while — Oh,” he says. “Wait. That’s already been done.”

If Alex had a knife, he would use it right now.

”I understand that you hate me, Hamilton, and I think I understand why. But I know something you don’t.” He stands. He brings over a covered tin and a spoon and sets it together in front of Alex.

“Eat that properly, like the gentleman you pretend to be, and I will tell you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Night draws shut around them, lit by only a lantern in the tent, and in that layered silence Burr explains why he was kept drugged ("To keep you quiet, idiot") and Alex thinks his head might come off his body with the rage and injustice and of it.

When the screaming reds reside and he can open his eyes again his first thought is: _I do not want to be in debt to Aaron Burr._

Except he already is.

Burr considers him. “Are you going to say something stupid?”

Alex opens his mouth broad. It's a punctuation to rudeness. A dare to cowardice.

There’s a pause.

(No one has looked in his mouth yet, since —  _since._ No one except for the camp physician.) (Alex  _knew_  it was his own countryman,  _knew_  he was not going to be hurt any more, he  _knew_  he had to behave and show a calm acceptance but found himself screaming in a hoarse raw noise and scrambling back in an automatic response that had nothing to do with his own will; he was flailing, knocking over the lantern and a clattering tray of instruments, sending him tumbling over the camp chair, sending him further into the dark)

— no one else has looked at him. No one has asked. No one dares.

Burr looks: and he shrugs at the sight. Sighs. “Very dramatic, Hamilton. But why the theatrics? You understand perfectly well that things are changed. You understand that you are no longer the favorite. You," he says slowly, "are made useless.”

Useless, indeed. Alex can write, think, shoot — there are still things he can  _do_ , no matter whwt people say, he isn’t solely his  _mouth_  — 

“Worse than useless,” says Burr. “A liability. A broken legged horse who can’t be put out to the glue factory or else the children will cry. Washington,” he says with deliberation, “wanted to let you die.”

No.

“Yes," says Burr: and he shuts the lid of the desk with a snap. "I talked him out of it."

Alex stomps over and takes up the quill, furious:  _No one asked you for that favor,_  he writes.

Straightens up, ready to throw it in Burr's face -- ready to throw a table or a punch —

But Burr is gone.

 

The drugs are in the food, so Alex stops eating. 

 

They leave his system, leave him shaking and sweating and cold and vomiting in the dirt.

Burr doesn't say anything comforting about this; he doesn't say anything at all. But he brings fresh water when Alex is done, and helps him to his feet.

There's something so humiliating about this -- and in front of Burr, who misses nothing.

Alex could cry if that wouldn't make things worse.

He sleeps.

And sometime in his sleep, the first real sleep without the drugs, the memory comes up of what he's been trying to ignore: _Laurens_.

 

He wakes again and it's full daylight and Burr is bent over a camp table, writing and mumbling to himself.

Alex slides out of bed. Slams his hand down on the desk.

Burr jumps, stumbles back, a hand going to his waist. "Jesus fuck, Hamilton --"

But Alex is scribbling in block letters and he holds it up in front of his face. _JOHN_   _LAURENS_ _._

"What about him?"

Of all the times for Burr to act obdurate.

Alex makes a harsh gesture, he doesn't have time for this shit -- he's taking a step to the tent-flap (it's kept closed, _always_ kept closed, why is it _closed_ when it's so dark and sweaty and why didn't he think of it before? _they've been hiding him drugging him hiding him distracting him with Burr and petty arguments when he could have been should have_ _)_

Burr jerks him back. "You are to stay put."

Alex makes a vulgar motion. _I need to piss._

“Use the bucket."

Alex tugs away, he's stronger than Burr and taller -- except that he isn't anymore, he's weak from lack of food and sickness and the laudanum and his own mind -- and when But lets him go, he stumbles backwards and falls.

His head hits the edge of the chair, and he sees stars. He hears Burr say again: "Use that oversized brain of yours and think carefully for one goddamned second. Washington put you here.  What good will it do you to leave?”

 _Laurens,_ he mouths.

He needs to see John. Nothing else matters.

And he does need it. It's like a physical ache to him now, the memory of John Laurens. The taste of his throat on a summer night, and the taste of something lower down, something that made John swear aloud and pull Alex up off his knees for a hot kiss. Hot enough to burn down the country.

He loves John Laurens and he _needs_ him and he's furious at himself that he didn't remember until now, that he's been so sick and sad that he forgot, and --

\-- and Burr is watching him. Considering him. He says "Do I need to bind you?"

His expression says he would do it.

And now Alex knows why he was put here, with a man he hates, who hates him. Not just that: he knows why it's Burr.

Because anyone else would feel sorry for him.

 

It isn’t until later — lying awake, undrugged and unable to sleep — that he realizes this is the first time he’s wanted something, _since_.

It’s another sign of life, of holding on, and it keeps him awake until he hears blackbirds and the rustle of soldiers at dawn. Because it feels like a decision — to want something, some _one_ — and he hasn’t decided yet if he will live. He isn’t sure if that’s what he wants.

In the grey halflight, he thinks: _Am I waiting for someone to tell me what to do?_ — and on that, falls utterly asleep. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the French says: Help, help me, please, you must give me help. My family is dead.

So they don't talk to each other now, Burr and Alex. Well of course Alex does not, but now he doesn't even bother to communicate with gestures or written words. He doesn't respond at all when Burr speaks, even about normal every day topics like _Are you finished that_   _yet_ and _It's cooler today_ and _You need to change out of those filthy clothes, man._

Alex only looks at him. Blank.

He can't see any reason why Laurens should be kept away. He can't think of what good it would do anyone. _You're a trophy,_ Burr had said, _and a warning._ And _Washington still isn't sure of what to do._ But Laurens is a valuable solider, he's a wealthy man's son and an officer and --

He hasn't been told. He doesn't know.

Alex holds out his hand for paper, pen.

Burr complies. He's got that falsely mild expression again, but fuck him.

Alex writes: _You tell Laurens._

"No."

He underlines it --

"No, Hamilton."

\-- draws a box around the words --

"Don't you think that Washington has a good reason for what he does? Or are you simply unable to think past the end of your own nose? That at least hasn't changed."

Alex shakes his head, dogged. Writes _You tell Laurens, or I will._

"How are you planning to do that?"

_You need to sleep sometime._

"Threats will only get you drugged again."

He wants to scream again in outraged frustration and grief -- at Burr, at Washington, at himself -- why is he so _weak_ , why is everyone making this life impossible -- why -- he puts his hands over his face and tries to breathe deeply, to calm down.

Burr sighs (at him!) and goes back to work. He's translating something from the French, and every so often he mumbles a few words to himself.

His accent is terrible.

Hamilton could do that work. He could do it better. He learned French as a child from the traders who came to Nevis, dealing slaves and rum. After the hurricane -- there were so many hurricanes but there is only one that he remembers, _the_ hurricane, one of the many winds blowing his life off-course and dividing it into _before_ and _after_ , just like the British did to his life and his country, yes --

Afterwards he woke dazed and bruised in the ruins of their house. He went down to the town proper -- "to help," he'd told his mother. "To see if they need help." Or to loot.

But the town was a shambles and the ship docked in harbor was broken apart, the thousand dark bodies it had held drowned where they lay in chains, still linked, still slaves, even in death. He sifted halfheartedly through rubble but there seemed nothing valuable at all -- not in the heaps of shattered wood and broken glass nor in the living people who wandered senseless and bloody and looked at him with vacant eyes, weeping and imploring. "M'aidez. M'aidez. Bonne garcon, s'il vous plais -- m'aidez --"

 _Ma femme,_ one man wept. _Mes fils._ He grabbed Alex by the arm. _Vous devez m'aider._

 _Je vais vous aidez. Tranquillez-vous, monsieur. Du calme,_ because the man was pale and looked sick. _Où est votre famille?_

_Sont mort, mon Dieu, le tout sont mort --_

Alex backed away, shaking his head. There was nothing he could do about death.

 

There seems to be nothing he can do about Burr.

They sink into quietness again, Burr working and scratching out lines and rewriting them, Alex watching without interest from his army-issue bedroll.

The day is long and the heat is stiffling and Alex falls asleep, into a dream. A nightmare. It's all knives and wind and forces he can't fight, and he wakes whimpering and crying out, hearing his own voice -- his real voice -- overlapped with the pitiful sounds he can make now.

Burr is watching him. Silence. Silent.

Burr could speak and he does not. He could help and does not.

Alex can't bear it. He says, the word soundless and hopeless: _Please._

"Fuck," says Burr. "Fuck."


	5. Chapter 5

He does not want to be indebted to Burr.

It is his first personal thought, his first  _Alexander_  thought, since — since it happened.

He has  _thought_  things, he wept and sobbed and yelled and tried to argue with god or demons, he isn't sure of the difference anymore, in drug-addled dreams where his tongue remained but his speech was gone —

— or else toads and lizards come from his mouth when he spoke, like the horrible children’s story —

— or his own voice shouts things he didn’t want to say ever, horrible hateful words, til he claps two hands over it in horror. Muting himself. Better to be silent than to speak like that.

Those were not thoughts. They were reactions.

This is a thought: _I do not want to be indebted to Burr._

 

The debt takes some time to accrue. Burr is cautious to a fault and he will not act without reason and he makes Alex want to murder him --

\-- but he has to be patient, he has to wait, Burr said that he would do it and Burr will keep his word against the devil himself. (Strange, to find himself trusting Burr.)

And it is strange to find a reason to wake up in the morning and wash his face and scrub his nails. _Today I will see Laurens again._ And at night, when the long day is gone past and he has not: _Tomorrow. I'll see him tomorrow._

It seems to be always happening tomorrow and never today, and his faith is stretched thin as his patience, and every day he needs to grit his teeth against the words he wants to say to Burr until it is midday, and he's reading alone, cross-legged on the blankets.

Burr comes in.

Alex looks up.

Burr strides over to him, leans down, and whispers into his ear: "If you make me regret this, Hamilton, I will cut off something even dearer to you than your tongue. Do you understand me?"

He understands this means _Laurens._ Finally, finally, finally.

His gratitude and joy and relief must show on his face, because it isn't like Burr to press an issue but now he says again: "Tell me you fucking understand."

Alex nods. _Yes._

But he doesn't care what Burr said or what he thinks or what he's threatening. It doesn't matter. John will be here soon.

 

 

"Alex," says Laurens: he sounds broken. He looks broken. He reaches out with a hand that doesn't reach to Alexander, who stands still, who thinks: _Why are_ you _the one crying?_

Because Laurens is a mess of tears and snot, his always-neat uniform now stained and filthy, mucus dried in shiny snail-trails on his sleeves. He keeps trying to speak and not getting anything more than a word or two out.

Alex thinks it's an apology. He wants to smile and joke: _You didn't do it!_ but of course he can't. And it isn't funny, not really.

He should have expected this, he thinks; and then (hotly), _Burr should have warned me._ Which is ridiculous, and unjust, and anyway Burr sort of did, in that Burrian way which is more vexing than no warning at all because it only makes Alex want to do whatever Burr is obliquely telling him not to do ("Washington gave permission," he'd said without a single editorialization or inflection in his voice, and alright, Alex _should_ have known what it meant, but --)

But John.

Alex should have expected this.

The same thing happened when he, Alex, had confronted Laurens about his marriage. _Why didn't you tell me what made you hide it from me why would you think this would change anything, John, I love you, I could never care what you do with women_ \-- although just the fact of his hiding the marriage and (in effect) lying for well over a year was itself a change and rift to Alexander's feelings. _I'll never stop loving you,_ he'd said, while feeling the inevitability of it lurk just behind his words, because Laurens was weeping and carrying on and he must be comforted. _John, tell me you love me._

And he'd told him with words and deeds, there in the darkness, in the tall grass --

"Your beautiful mouth," Laurens says, from under the hands over his face. "Your beautiful _words_."

Alex scribbles: _Is that all I am? A tongue?_

Laurens freezes. Even his nose stops dripping. "No -- of course not -- you're so much more than that, Alex, oh Alex you're everything --"

Alex writes: _This doesn't change anything._

Laurens nods. Sniffs. Doesn't speak.

There's something odd about John's posture. Something off. He is always warm and open, broadly smiling at the people he loves, it's no wonder his father knew he was a -- knew his inclinations, proper men don't behave like that, they're standoffish and cold and unaffectionate. But John likes to touch his friends, curl up beside them, rub shoulders and steal body warmth. He loves out loud. And now he's got his arms wrapped around himself like he's holding pieces together.

 _I’m still myself. You can still touch me_ , Alex writes. _I won’t break._ Holds it up to show.

"Alex --"

He won’t let John Laurens see this sick feeling, he won’t let him see his doubt. He puts the paper back on the table, writes: _Kiss me_

John's gaze flickers to the writing, reading it, then looks back to Alexander's face. He doesn't move.

Alex stays like that, leaning over the table, quill in hand. Waiting.

John doesn't move.

Alex writes one more word -- and John doesn't even look down at it, he's biting his lip --

\-- and he leaves, roughly pushing open the tentflaps, pushing past whomever is in his way.

He won't talk to Laurens again. He's said what there is to say. 

 _Coward,_ he wrote.

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

He hasn’t left their tent — Burr’s tent, an officer’s tent — since —

 _Since —_ he thinks and his mind stutters and he forces himself past the thought, as he’s forcing himself to pass through the sleeping bodies of friends and unknowns, each on their individual bedroll, face up to the stars.

It’s the first time he’s been under the starlight, _since they cut out his tongue._

Yes. Face that. Accept that, instead of —

Walk to the river, Hamilton. It’s not so far away, only a mile or two, his feet know the way and his eyes know the guidemarks of rock and hill and tree and his internal compass points true North, a magnet lining up for him to follow, certain as a bird migrating home.

He used to feel that way about John Laurens.

It’s slippery at the edge of the water, an the trees block the light. He holds on to a branch and then a root, bruising his feet, standing kneedeep in mud and water.

He’s probably covered in leeches. He fucking hates leeches.

He’d thought he would go into the water proper, and then — then —

He hadn’t thought past then.

He’ll drown himself, maybe. It seems reasonable.

Losing John feels like losing his tongue all over again: and worse,  because the soldiers did it to be cruel.

John loved him and did it anyway.

The water is cold, curling and lapping around his bare skin, even though the summer night is warm warm terribly warm.

He would dearly like to be cold.

And he’s crying now, and how fair is that? Thank god no one is here to see but oh, what a humiliation it is all the same. _John_ , he tries to say — and it comes out as a moan and that is so unfair, so _unjust_ that he cannot have the lover’s privilege of keening aloud — he sinks into the mud and the river and the cold nearly to his neck, weeping all the same and wiping away hot tears with filthy hands.

Noise. A voice. “Hamilton? Are you here?”

Alexander freezes.

The man comes and stands nearby — close enough for Alex to see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, and almost-see his face.

Alex is safe, so long as he doesn’t move. The man brought no lantern and it’s far darker here beneath the trees —

“You are such a fucking pain in my ass,” the man says, and sighs.

Burr. Of course. Who else would look for him. (He tries not to remember who else _would have_ looked for him —)

“I know you’re nearby. I don’t plan to ruin my boots or my breeches by searching for you, and please ignore the ignominious suggestion of my words that I would soil them from the inside, rather than with mud.”

No reply.

The leaves and grass whispers; the river speaks to itself.

“Are you running away? Without leave? Shall I tell Washington that his favorite is a coward? Funny, I never thought that of you. Almost everything else, but not that.” A pause. “You know what they do to deserters. Are you _trying_  to be hanged?”

Burr will leave, eventually. Everyone leaves. It’s only a matter of time. Alex shuts his eyes.

Burr does not leave. He stands still.

At last Alex looks at him again.

He is looking at Alexander.

Surely Burr can’t see him. It’s dark — his skin is plastered with water and mud — but he is looking at Alex like he always looks: direct, considering, without pity.

“If your body is found in the morning,” he says, “I’ll tell them you were gone swimming. They’ll bury you in holy ground.”

And he turns and goes.


	7. Chapter 7

He's done with crying by the time Burr shows up.

"Alexander?" and the soft flare of light, as Burr sets down a lantern. "Are you -- oh." He sees the note, he's reading what Alex wrote.

_if you say 'I told you so' I will murder you in your sleep_

"Hamilton?" and he's kneeling by the bedroll. "Are you awake?"

Alex makes a face without opening his eyes.

"I told you so," says Burr.

\-- and Alex sits up, all flame and fury, he's really ready to do violence -- but that's sympathy on Burr's face, not scorn --

\-- and now Alex is crying again

but this time, Burr is there to sit by him.

 

  
"Did I ever tell you about Theodosia?" says Burr, some time later.

He's drinking. They have been drinking. Burr has been drinking more than Alex has been drinking, but they're both drunk and have been for some time.

Around them, the night is silent and still.

Alex shakes his head: _No_. They've never really spoken at all, him and Burr. And now Alex can't speak --

"She was beautiful. She is beautiful. And charming. And intelligent. My god, the man she would have been! A force of nature." He drinks. "I wanted her."

Alex gestures. _So?_

"So, she was married."

_So?_

"To a British officer. Yes," in reply to Alexander's expression. "Not my best decision, but we don't choose where we love, do we? And that little drama was going on when you called me passive -- don't give me face, I know what you've said about me to Washington --"

 _But I didn't,_ thinks Alex. When has he ever badmouthed Burr? _Rich arrogant fuckstick pain in the ass,_ yeah he's said that plenty, but all that is _true_ , and --

"I wanted her, and I lost her, and — Well, all that was a long time ago. But I am sorry," says Burr now, across the darkness. A pause. "I am sorry that your ... that it turned out like this."

The words are just oblique enough that he could be referencing anything -- his own relationship, or the war, or Alexander's injury, or anything at all really -- but Alex knows, _knows_ he's talking about John Laurens.

Burr knows they were lovers. When -- what gave them away? When did Burr know? Who had he told? When did he know?

His face must show some of this, because Burr gives that rare half-smile Alex is just coming to recognize, like only half of his face can give in to honesty at one time. He moves so he's sitting close, and puts his arm around him in a casual, comfortable embrace. "I am sorry," he says again, gently -- this man who scolded Alex for bleeding on the dirt floor when he came in half-conscious and shivering with fever, who'd shamed him for not eating when it burned and tormented his raw mouth, whose kindest comment since Alex returned had been _You have legible handwriting._

Alex curls up in his arms and is comforted like a child.

 _Shh,_ says Burr _. Shh,_ _Alex. I know._

And Alex believes him.


	8. Chapter 8

This is the way it gets better: It does not.

His tongue stays gone. He wakes and sleeps and laughs and eats and bathes and daydreams in silence.

Burr is no more talkative and friendly than he was before.

The other soldiers refuse to learn or develop the rudiments of signed language, instead relying on paper, pen, during those increasingly-rare moments they speak with him.

Eliza is sent the news of what happened to her fiancé. She doesn’t write back, doesn’t write back, doesn’t and doesn’t until he receives a terse letter from her father: Your engagement is terminated, please discontinue this harrassment.

Laurens lets it slip that he’s married, has been married, he dropped his wife and baby daughter in England and fled to the fields of battle. 

Alex thought he was done weeping over John Laurens. He was wrong.

 

  
He finds other things and other people to do, eventually; he finds out what he can do, what sort of person appreciates a man with a weak gag reflex and a tolerance for pain

& he finds out that sex isn’t enough. None of the men are a substitute for Laurens, none of their bodies will heal him — that stubborn spot in his heart that goes on aching and wanting, no matter how often he tells it _shut up, shut_ up _, no one wants you._

He finds — he misses the certainty of Laurens more than the man himself. John was a _someone_ to write to, talk with. A body to fuck in moonlight. _A daydream is what he was,_ Alex thinks: and he rubs his eyes. He is so tired.

Worst of all losses is the new absence of safety. Certainty. Before — before — it wasn’t like this. Oh, he hadn’t felt invincible, he always knew he could die, he was more than willing to die —

— but not willing to be mutilated and cast aside by people he trusted, a burden and embarrassment, not worth the price of boots. The butt of jokes: _The British worked a miracle, I didn’t think anything_ _would stop his chatter, —_

Safety is gone and he cannot get it back. He wakes and works and sleeps and wakes again, shivering with cold sweat in midsummer heat, feeling again the taste of metal and quick-slow slash and the blood in his mouth, the blood that wouldn’t stop, the wound that wouldn’t stop.

“You need to make peace with it,” said Burr once, when they were still sharing a space, when Alex woke him with sobbing. “You have to accept it, and let it heal.”

He can’t — he can’t even bear to face it. Accepting hurts like the first loss did, repeated all over again, a second time to lay his heart bare in his chest. Who could survive that grief twice in a lifetime? Who would dare to try?

“This will get easier,” said Burr on one of those long-ago midnights. “It will get better.”

 _What if it doesn’t,_ Alex wrote: and his hands shook as he said it.

“That isn’t an option,” said Burr.

 

The worst dreams are when he thinks he is whole.


End file.
